I'm staring at several racks of Dell Poweredge servers, which have behaved very well for us, but...

The blue power indicators (LCD backlight on newer machines) fade out over time.

I think I could figure out the installation dates our servers by looking at how bright the LED is. After about 4 years, the light is almost gone. On some of our 2950's the lcd is almost unreadable. The R710 that just went in is blinding.

I'd like to be able to read all of these LCD's in a few years, and I wish I could count on the rear indicator light. (Those have the same problem.) but I don't have high hopes.

Any ideas on how I can preserve the life of the LEDs? I'm tempted to leave them all blinking in (i) indicator status: maybe they'd last twice as long. Can I dim them manually somehow? I'd rather have 5 years of 50% then one at 100%, 75%, 50%, 30%, 20%, &c. And on a related note: seems like someone keeps screwing up, by either either sending too much current into the LED or by speccing too wimpy a part for this.

I know, I know, a minor problem in the grand scheme of things, but I have faith that someone has solved this...

1 Answer
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I deal with dell servers extensively and have never come across this. (Various ages from new to 12 years old) All seem to be uniform for me across various sites.

Something that might resolve this or at least point out the source of the problem is to use the cabled UID/Status-Indicator that comes with Dell cable management arms. They plug into a small socket on the back.